perfectly for all, nor less perfectly for the minutest particle of inert matter: so is it with our GoD; his glory covers the heavens; the earth is full of his praise. Ten thousand times ten thousand ministering spirits breathe the atmosphere of his love, or repose beneath the shade of his power; but, with all this circle of dependants, he looks in tenderness and care upon the lowliest child of Adam; yes, he shines as perfectly for him, as if there were no other creature in heaven or in earth! Oh, most amazing power of our God! How it baffles our thoughts! how it teaches us our littleness! how would it burden our mind were it not that the whole is a mystery of grace!

To touch, in a few words, on some particulars. Do we consider (that which is, indeed, too often treated as a light thing by the ungodly) our creation? How great the power and

goodness of God here displayed! We are, because God hath so willed. The very notion of creation implies extrinsic agency. We could no more have formed our bodies or given to our minds their various faculties, than a particle of matter could speak itself into being, or, joining with others, could acquire spontaneously organic formation. GOD was disposed to create a people for himself, to raise a generation on whom he might bestow eternal felicity; and, therefore, behold him attempering the dull clay, modelling the lamp of humanity, and taking a living coal from the altar of his self-existent fire to light it withal! "Thou hast beset me behind and before, and laid thine hand upon me; I will praise thee, for I am fearfully and wonderfully made; marvellous are thy works, and that my soul knoweth right well my substance was not hid from thee when I was made in secret; thine eyes did see my substance yet being imperfect, and in thy book all my members were written, which in continuance were fashioned, when as yet there was none of them."

the mercy of being kept day

- what is this but a continual

by day, and moment by moment; creation? Yes, just as without the centripetal and centrifugal forces impressed on and continued to the heavenly bodies, only by the divine volition, universal nature would be disorganized,

so without the constant care, the tender assiduity of our God, this continual remodelling, so to speak, our frames, we should once again seek our nothingness; "there would be but a step between us and death." Hear, therefore, the Prophet instructing us: "Hast thou not known, hast thou not heard, that the everlasting God, the LORD, the Creator of the ends of the earth, fainteth not, neither is weary ?" Attend to the inspired David, addressing him as the "Shepherd of Israel, who neither slumbereth nor sleepeth," and in gratefully adoring strains acknowledging him as "about his path, and about his bed, and spying out all his ways."

But in these things, we do but begin to trace the mercy of our heavenly Father; "Lo! these are parts of his ways, but how small a portion is heard of him!" Had it been the design of the ALMIGHTY to create and preserve us, still, how, by a different economy, without our having the least power to alter the arrangement, might he have made life a weary burden; and especially, as sinners, what reason might there have seemed for his doing so? He might, as Dr. Paley says, "have formed our senses to be as many sores and pains to us, as they are now instruments of gratification and enjoyment; or have placed us amidst objects so ill suited to our perceptions, as to have continually offended us, instead of ministering to our refreshment and delight. He might have made, for example, every thing we tasted, bitter; every thing we saw, loathsome; every thing we touched, a sting; every scent, distressing; and every sound, a discord." How, then, does the benevolence of GoD shine forth in the present distribution of his providence; how is man, even sinful man, taught, that "He is good, and doeth good continually." Even the most afflicted, (if his mental vision be not dimmed by sin,) must perceive the goodness, as well as the wisdom of our heavenly Father's arrangements, and confess that the ALMIGHTY's dealings with him are different indeed from his deserts. But as to the majority of the human family, or, as to any individual, if the whole of his life (and not especial passages of sorrow) be considered, how certainly have mercies exceeded griefs, or at least, how much must we trace it to our own fault

or folly if our experience be otherwise. Our year of mortality may have its clouds and rains, its snows and winds, but we are seated in a propitious clime, in which bright suns and unclouded skies are far more numerous, and the very storms we mourn, though they cause a temporary gloom, do but instruct us in thankfulness, and mingle fruitfulness with weeping.

But the things which have been spoken, attach to the less happy children of our race; I am addressing the recipients of many privileges, distinguishing blessings; those who, with respect to this life merely, are among the most favored of the inhabitants of the earth; who glory in the dear name of freedom; who enjoy quietness and prosperity; who, in looking back upon the year that is past, may take up the language of our psalm and say, "Thou visitest the earth and waterest it; thou greatly enrichest it; thou preparest the corn; thou waterest the ridges thereof abundantly; thou settlest the furrows thereof; thou blessest the springing thereof: thou crownest the year with thy goodness, and thy paths drop fatness; they drop upon the pastures of the wilderness, and the little hills rejoice on every side. The pastures are clothed with flocks, the valleys also are covered with corn; they shout for joy, they also sing." Nay, brethren, you live to tell of a judgment of the LORD, which has visited land after land, and has probably destroyed a greater number of human beings than any other visitation ever known, not excepting the flood. Oh! what an awful period has the last summer been for thousands! How has the king of terrors passed along among us! How has the destroying angel struck with his sword, now one, and now another of our fellow-mortals! How has the grave yawned, and hades been peopled! What a voice of preparation has sounded in our ears! What an uncertainty has attended our path as to who should be the next affected! Our life has hung in doubt from day to day. Fear has been our familiar. The word in every mouth, the thought in every heart was the same; "Shall I be taken!" We have stood by the beds of the sick, we have heard the moans of the dying, we have seen the painful haste with which our fellowpilgrims have been removed to their final home; we have felt

that security was not either in staying or in flight! For as in the battle the swift shot attains equally the sturdy warrior in his rank, and the fugitive courting dishonorable safety, so, in this battle of the LORD, the arrow has pierced those who have departed as well as those who have remained: it has found its way to the recesses of the wilderness, and to the crowded streets of the city; to the mansion of the wealthy no less than to the hovel of the lowliest! Nay, am I not addressing some whose friends have thus fallen asleep? Are there not those before me who have themselves, though not fatally, been wounded? And yet are we spared! Yet do we survive through the mercy of our GOD! Yet are we experiencing a return of wonted peace, and hear only the tempest, as, having swept by our homes, it is desolating places beyond us. Surely it becomes us to recognise this signal blessing of the ALMIGHTY, and, pondering on our change of feelings in the short period of a few months, to consider the salutary lessons to be derived from the afflictive providence.

But what has been said pertains alone to the mercies received in the present life, upon which even (in their extent and excellency) I feel I have scarcely touched, and must leave it to your own hearts to complete the meditation. But all these, be it remembered, are but means, they are not final blessings: they are not the objects, properly speaking, of God's dealings with man: they are, as it were, but so many steps of pearl, and beryl, and amethyst, and topaz, leading to the brilliant throne of salvation; the ineffable glory and dignity to which our Almighty Parent would exalt his children. Yes, brethren, temporal blessings are excellent, they evidence their origin; they are extensive; "there is neither speech nor language where their voice is not heard!" but they are as nothing compared with those riches of grace, that perfection of happiness, which God has reserved for returning sinners, and which he offers to them in the incarnation of his Son, and the fellowship of his Spirit. You may breathe the gales of spring, but the spring passes. You may bask in the fostering sun, but the sun descends: you may pluck earth's most delicious fruits, but their bloom is soon lost, their taste corrupted. "The world passeth away, and the things thereof, but salvation

abideth for ever." The only change it experiences is an augmentation of unutterable bliss. It is well for us to take our range over temporal mercies, it is well to soar aloft on the wings of meditation, that we may behold more and more the prospects of earth's comforts, and the exuberance of God's benevolence; but, would we seek security as well as pleasure; would we contemplate the fulness of joy as well as the streams of goodness, we must betake ourselves to the rock CHRIST, rising amid the unfathomable surge of infinitude; we must make the Saviour's bosom our home; the truths of eternity our repose; and, therefore, did the devout of Israel employ the elevated language of the text, and hence, with them, are we invited to observe in the second place

II. The effect these things should produce in our minds.

The bands of worshippers, as they approach the holy city, are impressed with the twofold thought of the festival of thankfulness to be held there, and the duty of attending to desires and promises of obedience previously formed. They wish, if complaint and sorrow are to be forgotten in praise, that at least the vows of affliction should be performed in prosperity. They solicit the condescending regard of God to their grateful homage, "Praise waiteth," or as the margin from the original reads, "is silent for thee, O GOD in Sion, and unto thee shall the vow be performed!" Thankfulness is a distinctive mark and prominent duty of the servant of GOD: it is a holy and blessed state of mind, of which the world knows little, for the object of the unregenerate man's idolatry is self, and like a Narcissus, in admiring he perishes. Not so the inhabitants of that place of which Sion is a type. Heaven is all praise. The burden of the song of angels is, "Blessing, and glory, and wisdom, and thanksgiving, and honor, and power, and might be unto God for ever and ever." Not so the Church of redeemed sinners, who have, if possible, even higher motives for gratitude. Brethren, you are now invited to participate in this feeling. You have heard some few of the mercies of GOD (though briefly and feebly, indeed,) enumerated. Each, in his personal experience of God's loving kindness, has his personal motives for praise.